Outsourcery co-CEO Linney joins Cabinet Office SME Panel

One of the bosses of the cloud service provider to provide insight to SMEs from the IT sector to help them win more public service contracts

Outsourcery co-CEO Piers Linney has joined the Cabinet Office SME Panel to advise on issues within the small and medium business space. He will provide insight on the view from the IT sector.

The Panel, which was formed in 2011, advises the Cabinet Office on work to help more SMEs to win public sector contracts.

With the addition of Linney (pictured), who is also a panel member on BBC television programme Dragon’s Den, it now consists of 24 micro, small and medium business leaders across a number of industry sectors.

Linney said: “The public sector provides a massive opportunity for SMEs, which are the engine of the economy. The aim of having SMEs account for 25 per cent of direct and indirect central government expenditure is within reach. The G-Cloud framework in particular is a world leading example of how IT procurement should evolve to drive value for money and broaden supply bases to introduce more competition and innovation.

“However, it is important that such initiatives continue to adapt and that feedback is heard and acted upon and I look forward to adding our perspective.”

The G-Cloud framework was formed by the Government in 2012 and seeks to accelerate the adoption of cloud services by introducing them into Government departments, local authorities and the wider public sector at the best possible price.

Services are paid for on a prepay basis and can be bought through the CloudStore, which is an online catalogue containing more than 1,200 suppliers and 13,000 services.